


Bringing Up the Rear

by apprenticenanoswarm



Category: DCU (Comics), Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Hellblazer & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:40:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24680965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apprenticenanoswarm/pseuds/apprenticenanoswarm
Summary: Slade really hates magic.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson, Slade Wilson/William Randolph Wintergreen
Comments: 14
Kudos: 60





	Bringing Up the Rear

“Lust. Funny thing, innit? Not fit for polite conversation, yet surrounding us every hour of every day, vomited across billboards, ads, magazine covers. Lust’s the silvery subtext undergirding so many of our hopes and habits. What clothes we wear. How we interpret others’ clothes. Where we drink, who we drink with, what we do when we’ve drunk too much. If lust is an essential element of your job – for example, if you’re a sex worker – then you’re inherently lesser; perverse; _sinful_ , even. A lost soul. On the other hand, if lust just doesn’t feature in your life at all, you’re damaged. Sick. So many intertwined, contradictory narratives slicing through what, at its heart, can be so simple, and that’s before you start to grasp how lust interacts with the uncanny – and the demonic. Magic is a kind of lust, you know, a yearning for…”

“Constantine, I like you. I do. But if you don’t get to the point in the next ten words, I’m going to throw you out that window.”

John blew a smoke ring at him. “Fine. Fuck me for trying, I guess. Long story short: I screwed up.”

Slurping the too-sweet tea John had made him (with sour milk taken from a fridge that looked about fifty years old), Slade drawled, “Really? _You_?”

“Drop dead, arsehole. There was this demon, alright? I needed a favour, things got complicated, you don’t gotta know the whole story. I’m cursed. That’s the point.”

“‘Cursed’.”

John sighed, heavily. “It’s like catching a cold. A magical cold. Except instead of a drippy nose, I got… well, this. Take a gander.”

He took off his trenchcoat. The bushy fox tail growing out of his flat, British ass twitched under Slade’s scrutiny. “Well, that sure is hilarious, and even a little sexy. What’s it got to do with me?”

“Because you are, not to put too fine a point on it, a bit of a tart. And – don’t explode –I think this particular curse is one of those that gets passed on through sex.”

Slade’s face remained placid while his fist reduced the mug and its too-sweet too-sour contents to atoms. “John. I sure hope you’re not saying that you’ve given me a magical STD. Boy, I sure hope I’ve misunderstood.”

“Piss off, Sperminator, you don’t scare me. I’ve wiggled my bum at two separate versions of Satan and got away with naught but a mildly scorched ballsack for my trouble,” John sneered, his tail bristling. “The reason I’m letting you know, sweetheart, is because I’m damn sure you’ve hopped into at least three separate beds since we last met. You’ll need to let them know. And give them this.”

He set a vial of blue liquid down on the table. “The antidote. One drop on the tongue should do the trick. I can’t make more – getting my hands on this much almost cost me my bloody life – so be careful with it, yeah?”

0

Slade’s tail appeared the next day. It was white, and bushy, and wolf-like.

He could take the antidote. But there was only so much of it and he had a _lot_ of people to visit today.

He sliced it off. It grew back. Hmm. Interesting. Was that his enhancements or the curse at work? While pondering such matters, he picked up his television and threw it against the wall, then stomped on the remains.

“Fuck you, John,” he muttered a short while later after the mess had been cleared up, cutting a hole in his costume’s pants.

0

Dick, as anticipated, was the easiest. He was simultaneously admiring his new appendage in the mirror and posing for a selfie when Slade slipped in through his apartment window.

“Relax,” he said, rubbing Slade’s shoulders. “Honestly, you’re overreacting. This sort of thing just happens sometimes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I mean, I contracted herpes when I was twenty-one. _Totally_ wrecked my self-esteem for about a year. Which was stupid! I don’t get embarrassed about having the flu, so why should I be embarrassed about that?”

“I’m not embarrassed, brat. I’m angry.”

A gentle kiss was pressed against his forehead. “C’mon, Grandpa Grumpypants. It’s not that bad. I think it’s kind of cute, actually.”

Dick’s fluffy brown bunny tail was, in fact, remarkably cute. The fact that Slade was in too bad a mood to find out what it looked like covered in his cum only made him more irritable. He did, at least, remember to ask Dick to send him the selfie.

0

Adeline was next.

To his surprise, she found the whole thing funny.

“I knew you had terrible taste in men,” she said with a smirk, sitting on the steel blue couch they’d picked out together once upon a time, while her leopard tail rested neatly in her lap. “But a wizard? An actual wizard? My God, Wilson.”

Then, because his life was a ceaseless parade of horrors, Joey came into the room and asked what they were talking about.

When Adeline told him – because of course she told him – he looked Slade dead in the eye and signed, “You will never critique another of my boyfriends as long as you fucking live.”

0

“Oh, darling,” Talia murmured sympathetically, sipping her bourbon. “How do you get yourself into these messes?”

“A ‘tart’, he called me,” said Slade, his head in her warm lap. God, he had the world’s worst migraine. “Is that fair? I don’t think that’s fair.”

As she shrugged, her peacock tail spread out behind her, creating a green-blue halo that took his breath away. “You’re a beautiful man. Beauty should be shared, in my opinion; indeed, the generosity with which it’s shared often enhances its impact. Now, to other matters. This Constantine. I’ve heard of him. Perhaps you could arrange an introduction?”

Before his mind’s eye flashed all the varieties of magical nonsense that might result were Talia al Ghul and John Constantine allowed to meet. A woman who’d mastered death. A man who’d cheated the Devil. Nope. Not _at all_ interested in finding out how those two flavours went together. 

“Don’t think you’d like him,” said Slade, and unwittingly saved the multiverse.

0

Bruce’s grey wolf tail was identical to his in every way except colour.

Neither of them acknowledged this fact.

Slade offered the vial, grunting, “One drop only.”

Bruce took it, did as instructed, then handed it back with a grunt of thanks as his tail disappeared.

Slade nodded, then turned on his heel and left before things got even more revoltingly sentimental.

0

The Pied Piper was in the middle of a bank heist when Slade called upon him, the security guards and tellers all frozen like statues while he and his vermin horde loaded stacks of cash into the back of an ageing and distinctly weed-scented van like something out of an anti-capitalist _Ratatouille_.

“Oh,” he said, blinking, when Slade had finished explaining the situation. “A curse? Weird. So magic’s real, then?”

Slade cocked his head. “You woke up with _that_ growing out of you this morning and you’re only now entertaining the possibility?”

“Eh. I assumed one of the other Rogues was pranking me with an illusion or something. Trickster loves that juvenile crap,” he grumbled, flicking his long pink rat tail. “Honestly, I stopped looking for answers years ago. These days when weirdness hits, I just roll with it. Hey, I’ve got some spare time. Wanna go help me push a cop under a bus? Then maybe we could get coffee afterwards.”

“You need a real boyfriend, Rathaway.”

“God, I know,” he said mournfully, hanging his head.

0

Harley threw her head back and squealed like the hyena her hindquarters currently resembled. “The fuck! Wilson! The _fuck_! _Hahaha_ , you goddamn dope!”

“I am deeply, truly sorry,” said Slade, though not to her.

One thing John had evidently failed to mention – and Slade, fool that he was, had failed to contemplate – was that this thing could survive more than two degrees of separation from its primary source.

Poison Ivy stared at him. He poured every ounce of willpower into meeting her gaze without flinching, without glancing behind her, because _that was very much an alligator’s tail_ and Jesus Christ, she’d been frightening enough when all she had on her side were the powers of a god and an intelligence to rival his own.

“I’m not greedy,” Ivy said, flicking an ant into a nearby pitcher plant’s hungry maw. “Harley likes you. Harley can like whoever she wants. But I must insist, Deathstroke, that you take better care of her in future.”

“Yes. I will.”

“This won’t happen again.”

“It won’t. I give you my word.”

“Good. That’ll do. For now.”

She smiled gently, benevolently. A cricket ran over her face. She plucked it off and swallowed it.

0

When Slade opened the door to their house and stepped inside, Wintergreen’s tail wagged.

The part of Slade that always had and always would regard Billy as his commanding officer stepped from his subconscious’ shadows and held a knife to his neck.

“Border collie, unless I’m mistaken,” was all Billy said, handing him a cup of strong coffee. “Bit hard to be sure without the rest of the animal attached. How was young Richard?”

It was _still wagging._

“Fine,” Slade wheezed.

It was _so fluffy_.

With a hum of inquiry and a tilt of his head, Billy communicated his desire for Slade to turn around. When he’d done so, he felt Billy stroking his wolf’s fur.

“There’s no expiry date on that potion, is there?” Billy mused. “We could, hypothetically, take it tomorrow?”

Slade licked his dry lips. “Guess we could.”

Several hours later, Slade sent John a picture of his own naked rear, wolf tail raised upwards so as not to obscure the view, along with the triumphant message: _Guess what you never get to touch again._

Thirty seconds after that, John sent him a wink emoji, a picture of his lubed asshole framed by fire-red fox fur, and the message: _lol suuuure luv xxx_ _C u nxt month yeh? xxx mwah <3_

Sorely in need of guidance, Slade showed Billy his phone.

“Next week, I think,” said Billy. “And I’ll be coming along this time.”

**_The end_ **


End file.
